Corcoran to choose among 75 city administrator candidates

Hopes to decide June 1

The Corcoran City Council heard that 75 applicants have applied to serve as the city’s next administrator, and discussed the time line for when one candidate will be chosen.

The council also continued discussion about spending the city’s remaining Tax Increment Financing (TIF) dollars that expire at the end of the year, and heard from residents regarding the proposed Trail Haven Road improvement project.

ADMINISTRATOR

City administrator Dan Donahue is retiring in July. He updated the council about the process and time line to find his replacement.

He said consultant Richard Fursman indicated there are 75 applicants, and that Monday, May 13, Fursman would deliver a binder with recommendations to consider 12 applicants.

The council agreed to set a Thursday, May 16, special meeting to review the 12 and whittle them down to five.

“Those five will then be the finalists and information will be public,” Donahue later said. “They’ll be interviewed May 31/June 1 by the council. That whole process, the specifics will be defined on the 16th, how it’s done, who will interview who etcetera.”

Donahue said the goal is to select someone by June 1.

TIF PROJECTS

In other news, the council discussed the next steps in deciding what to do with a remaining $1.8 million in TIF funds that will expire at the end of this year. The city can spend the money on TIF eligible projects, like utility infrastructure, or must return the money to the county, after which a portion, but not all, of the funds could be recaptured.

Mayor Ken Guenthner and the city engineer recently met with a finance consultant and TIF advisor to discuss the overall pieces that need to be put into place regarding all the TIF projects, community development projects, planning and design projects, and identifying relationships of the projects to each other, time lines, and scope of work.

“We need to understand it more,” administrator Donahue said. “I think staff will be able to package the pieces and give ideas on what has to be done and when, in order to maximize our investments and assets.”

Donahue said the issue is trying to define projects that qualify for use of the funds and are in line with the city’s development goals, such as a downtown sewer project.

“They’ll talk more about it and hopefully adopt specific projects they want to proceed with,” Donahue said. “We’ll put together financing. Do we need to change the TIF plan? Do we have property budgets, those kinds of things.”

TRAIL HAVEN ROAD

In other news, the council added an item to the agenda concerning the Trail Haven Road pavement survey. The proposal is to pave the road between County Rds. 10 and 30.

Numerous residents were at the meeting to discuss the issue. Staff had done the survey and indicated it would discuss the results at this meeting, but the results didn’t get back in time. But residents had come, so the council decided to talk about it.

Staff said initial results indicate that half of Trail Haven Road residents support a pavement project (assessing users for the cost), and half are opposed.

“We’ll compile the survey results and it will be back on the agenda May 23,” Donahue said. “The issue is do we do the project or not? It’s up in the air.”

In other action, the council:

DISCUSSED how to proceed with the proposed Maple Hill Estates community center. The city hopes to proceed with a design after choosing an architect.

HEARD that a ground-breaking ceremony for the new public works facility would be conducted in the next couple weeks.